The Charlotte Jewish News - January 2010 - Page 13
Youth Visions
Friendship Circle Presents: Life Skills!
A major challenge to children
with disabilities is getting used to
the outside world—being com
fortable and competent in uncon
trolled, unpredictable environ
ments. With our new Life Skills
program, children will be exposed
to ordinary-life basics such as
library-going, visiting the doctor,
or going shopping. With practice,
they can become as self-sufficient
and unassisted as possible. Each
activity will be supervised, and
each child will be paired with
his/her special buddy and teen vol
unteer.
Life Skills will encompass
three different programs. The first
will be a visit to the library and
will incorporate several behavioral
skills; the second will be an excur
sion to the supermarket to focus
on shopping skills; and the third
will be a trip to a movie theater.
The dates will be January 5,
February 1 and February 8.
For more information, email
info@friendshipcirclenc.org or
call Bentzion at 704-366-5983.
Friendship Circle Awards B’nai
Mitzvah Trainees as “Volunteer
Certified”
After six weeks of sensitivity
training, eight students have
become officially “volunteer certi
fied.” Each week’s session
focused on a different disability,
its causes and challenges and what
the volunteers can do to help those
affected by that disability. Now
they will team up with veteran
Friendship Circle volunteers and
participate in actual programs for
children with special needs. Each
trainee received a certificate docu
menting his/her involvement in
the program. Disabilities covered
included autism, ADHD, cerebral
palsy, and Down syndrome. All
courses were taught by Mushka
Weiss.
Congratulations to Alex
Catenazzo, Noah Goldman, Aaron
Lipsitz, Sean Lemer, Julia Marx,
Niki Plaus, Zachary Rosen, and
Zack Rabinowitz for completing
Friendship Circle’s B’nai Mitzvah
Training Course.
For more information about
future B’nai Mitzvah training
courses, email info@friendship-
circlenc.org.
The Friendship Circle is a proj
ect of Lubavitch of North
Carolina. ^
Mushka Weiss leads the B ’nai
Mitzvah class in discussing
children S' disabilities.
FRIENDSHIP
Friendship Circle members Sean Lerner and
Sam Lahn prepare their presentation for the
B ’nai Mitzvah training class.
Hebrew Highlights
By Marci Goldberg
Hebrew High was both pleased
and proud to invite Scott Fried,
AIDS Educator/Motivational
Speaker, back to speak to our
Charlotte community on
November 18. Scott’s message is
one of responsibility, self-confi
dence, love, and self-respect. Scott
uses himself as Exhibit A. He
begins each lecture with his story
of how he got infected with HIV in
1987 at the age of 24, during his
first and only unsafe sexual
encounter. His unstoppable
approach to educating others can
be encapsulated into one thought:
one must understand the value of
one’s own life, and hold it sacred,
in order to refrain from dangerous
behaviors that could lead to HIV
infection and other crises.
Scott has spoken at over 500
institutions, including colleges
and universities, high schools and
middle schools, summer camps,
synagogues and churches. In addi
tion, he has lectured widely at
youth retreats, juvenile detention
centers and prisons, alternative
schools, learning disabled popula
tions, gay/straight alliances, PTO
meetings and teacher training
workshops. Topics include sexual
responsibility, abstinence, dating,
transmission of HIV, homosexual
ity, eating disorders, body image,
self-mutilation, suicide, alcohol
and drug misuse, dealing with
divorce and broken-heartedness.
among others.
Scott’s ability to relate to teens
is an amazing thing to observe. As
soon as he starts talking, the room
quiets down and all eyes are on
him. He pulls the audience in and
his story becomes their story.
“Everyone has something that’s in
their closet,” Scott says. His mes
sage to teens is to respect yourself
and believe in yourself enough
and never put yourself in a situa
tion where you are too afraid and
not strong enough to say “no” to
anything. By opening up his own
life to us, he lets us believe it can
happen to us... .we can get hooked
on drugs if we try it once, we can
betray one’s trust if we don’t keep
our word, we can be infected with
a disease if we can’t say no. ^
II I 1 u L 11 n I i.-rrn TTT
1 1 I I 1 1 1 TT
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I
After his presentation, Scott Fried met with several Hebrew
High students and answered their questions.
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'Wisfimg you
a BrigHt future
in 2010
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andtfie CaroCina "Business Coacfi Team
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